Document zj5YyRBNb8YYVD53NoDGRdyz

/ Asbestos Information Association/North America 22 East 40th Street New York, N. Y. 1C016 212-689-3378 January 26, 1973 \ Gentlemen: For these of you who may not have already seen it, attached is a copy of the January 21 New York Times Sunday Magazine article on asbestos by Robert Sherrill. As predicted in our memo of January 17, the article is a cornucopia of innuendo, misinformation, and unwarrented suppositions, all designed to portray the asbestos industry in the United States as an irresponsible villain. Also attached is a copy of the AIA/NA letter to The New York Times on the article. The letter has been reviewed and approved by the members of the Executive Committee and has received legal and medical clearance as well. Each member company of the Association should feel free to use the letter as needed to deal with questions raised as a result of the Times article. A-vshort covering note which accompanied the letter to the Times is also attached. We shall keep jtau informed when and if the Times agrees to publish the letrter. Sincerely, Matthew M. Swetonic Executive Secretary Enclosure A08024 X414829 UC-4SI6 , THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE V *' JANUARY 2l, 1973 By Robert Sherrill Shipyard work attracted about 4-5-miiiion Amer icans into its ranks at one time or another during World War n, and an estimated 3.25-million of those people are still alive. If they think about the experience at all these days it is probably to again remind themselves with satisfaction that things could have been worse. Whether they went into the work simply for a paycheck, or as a kind of emancipation (at some shipyards nearly one-third of the workers were women), or as an alternative to the military draft, those who built and repaired America's ships took comrort in supposing that however dirty and boring the work sometimes be came, at least it was safer than being in the front lines. Now it appears they may have been wrong to think so. The fatality statistics are still too scat tered and iffy to yield a solid conclusion, but there are some disquieting hypotheses to be drawn from such cases as that of the New York tire company executive we shall call Charles Annin because hit family prefers to keep his real name out of this. Arinin had never had a serious illness in hts life. He was a 2CO-pound* robust, hearty fellow who locked much younger than his age, 60. He enjoyed sailing in his spare time and ran a taut ship on the job, too. Then in December, 1971, he began getting sharp pains in his chest, enough to worry about, enough to send him to the doctor. Tests showed his heart was in fine shape, and the lung X-rays showed noth ing wrong. Still, the pains persisted and grew worse, and in April the doctors decided to go in for a look. They found that Mr. Armin was suffering from mesothelioma, a kind of cancer that has only come Into the medical fraternity's conversation in recent years. Mesothelioma, which has been so rare that it is not separately categorized in international medical classifications, is cancer of the chest lining or of the abdominal lining. Everyone who gets it is going to die from it within a year be cause it covers the whole lung area from apex to base, or infuses the whole abdomen, and no sur geon can take out so much and leave a survivable patient. It is a painful disease and progressively so. The cavity lining fills with fluid, which must be drawn off periodically; when the disease strikes the chest area the patient slowly suffocates. None of the usual cancer palliatives do much good, and there is no known cure. Mr. Annin's meso thelioma was discovered in April. He was dead 14 weeks later. The thing that makes his case--among a number of others--seem so ominous to some occupational health experts is that they know what caused it, and they know that the same cause has touched the lives of millions of other Americans. The cause was asbestos. Now, asbestos can be credited with saving many lives: fireproof clothing, fireproof insulation in buildings, safer and more durable brake linings, etc. But now asbestos is beginning to reveal its other side, not only in the appearance of the compara tively rare mesothalioina, but, on a much broader scale, as a catalyst of just plain lung cancer, and of asbestosis, a crippling disease which scars the lungs and interferes with the passage of oxygen into the blood. Anyone with an advanced case of asbestosis will probably feel more comfortable climbing the stairs backward, so that he can sit down on each step. He also can be certain that because of the presence of the asbestosis he has as much chance of developing cancer as of escaping it. Heavy doses of asbestos in the lungs also encourage the carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoke to a remarkable degree; studies have shown that asbestos workers who smoke have a lung S 0 9 0 jjRobert Sherrill U the Washington correspondent ofTheNation. G t\ .1 . cancer rate 800 per cent higher than smokers in the genera) population. Occupationally, probably five million or so Americans--insulation workers, construction work ers, oil-refinery workers, etc.--breathe a significant amount of asbestos dust every day they go to work. The hazard also crops up in distinctly nonoccupa- tional places, such as the Northside Elementary School in Lander, Wyo., which recently was closed by the state health department because asbestos which had been sprayed as an insulation on the ceiling was beginning to come loose and mix with the air in dangerous amounts. But wherever en countered, the hazard is especially insidious because it is like a long-term time bomb: For reasons doctors don't fully understand, the diseases related to asbestos do not explode for many years after the patient breathed it in. Mr. Annin, for example, had had nothing to do with asbestos since World War II, when, from 1S41 to 1943. he was a tinsmith in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He helped install fiber glass in destroyers* refrigeration holds, and he also secured asbestoscovered pipes with hangers and straps. After 1943, he got a white-collar job away from the shipyard and never again worked with asbestos. His 29-year lag between contact and illness was not surprising; indeed, for asbestos disease, 25 to 30 years is the normal period between exposure and development of symptoms, which is why medical scientists who have specialized in the occurrence of asbestosrelated industrial diseases believe that the first big wave of cancers from World War H shipyard ex posure may be at hand. Among those who think so are Drs. Irving J. Selikoff and E. Cuyler Hammond. Dr. Selikoff of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, City University of New York, is at least among the three or four top authorities on asbestos disease. Dr. Hammond is vice president of the American Cancer Society in charge of epidemiology1 and statistics, who already has gained a slice of immortality as the fellow most responsible for statistically dem onstrating the relationship between smoking and cancer. To some high officials at the U.S. Depart ment of Labor and to many high officials in the asbestos industry, these two doctors and their colleagues represent a kind of reform plague. Indeed, Selikoff is seen by some leaders of the asbestos industry as a cruel showman. F. J. Solon Jr- vice-president for environmental affairs of Johns-Manville Corp., the nation's largest producer of asbestos, says, "To terrorize people who worked In shipyards 30 years ago. and now can't do a g.d. thing about it--that's something I couldn't square with my conscience." Of the shipyard dangers, Selikoff says this: "We do know that there are a large number of meso theliomas in Great Britain. Probably over 1,600 now, people who worked in British shipyards start ing in 1935. They are five years ahead of us, so Britain casts its mesothelioma shadow aver the United States. We know it's a large number, but what the count will actually be we do not know. Nor do we know the percentage of incidence In Britain; they don't have wiiat we call a population base. But any percentage would be a terrible situation. The only data that we do have, that gives percentages, is a new paper just come out by Dr. D. Fletcher in Barrow, England, who followed got married? in 1935. you a group of shipyard workers from 1963 to the present, and he compared those who had X-ray stigmata of asbestos worked in that brake-lining place." "Oh sure." said Kerr, "but I only worked there fc. six months as a weaver." exposure with the general male population in that area. He found a three-times in crease of lung cancer among those who had X-ray evidence of asbestos exposure." "And here's his film on June 7, 1972." says Selikoff. "You can see the white stuff a1through the lungs. Bob's re tired now, 50-odd-years old, living in Florida, unable to (Industry spokesmen note that the British experience may not be wholly compar able to the American, since in British yards asbestos was ap plied with a spray process not breathe, can't even do his own lawn. Six months in 1935! Came up from Florida to see me to make sure he had no cancer. He doesn't. He just can't breathe." used in the U.S.) A number of asbestos-com The thing that is so alarm ing to Selikoff's group is that some risk applies not only to pany officials and asbestosunion officials who rose through the ranks have found asbestos workers (only one- . five-hundredth of the ship yard payroll), but to every body who worked downwind or in the general vicinity of that they are no safer for having been away many years from the actual handling of asbestos. Raymond Rider en tered the asbestos trade in the asbestos jobs. In ship building, this means anybody who has worked within the confines of the ship's struc ture: welders, shipfitters, machinists, pipefitters, elec tricians, carpenters, boiler 1947, but in the nineteen-six1 ties he became an official with New York Local 12 of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, and for 10 years he didn't touch makers--the whole gang. "You don't have to work with asbestos for 30 years to develop mesothelioma or some other cancer or asbestosis from it." Selikoff explains. "Absolutely not. Because once you get it in your lungs, it stays there forever, and as the years go by your lung continues to be exposed even though you may be out in the the stuff. But he had breathed enough in his early career. X-rays taken in Jan., 1971, showed he was still in the dear, but by Feb., 1972, they . showed mesothelioma. Since then he has had Jung surgery, 24 cobalt treatments and ex tensive chemotherapy. His fa ther, George Rider, also a union officer, died of the same disease. ; Rockies. The nice air in the The response of the indus Grand Canyon won't protect try and especially of the Fed you because you've already eral bureaucracy has been' got it In your lungs." strangely indifferent. The ran- ' In 1951, the lung X-rays of dom breather may not care, Robert Ken looked normal even though asbestos can, He was a little short of breath, harm him too--if, for exam and Dr. Selikoff couldn't un ple, he inhales asbestos > derstand why, but he put it thrown into the air by the ; down to all that dust Kerr demolition of buildings. But was breathing at the quarry the asbestos worker feels very where he worked. X-rays in lonely with his special demon. 1954 showed Kerr developing William G. Bernard, secretary- some lung scarring. It looked treasurer of the Asbestos like asbestosis, and Selikoff Workers Union and himself a asked Kerr if he had ever victim of lung-scarring, com- . worked with asbestos. No, he plains, "You know, we have - said, never. He told Selikoff his whole employment history and asbestos work wasn't part of it By 1958 the X-rays damn near as many, or mor*,people who work with as-' bestos as there are coal miners in the country. But nobody showed scarring in both lungs. cares about us, because we Selikoff's suspicions in don't have any disesrers. The . creased: Was Kerr certain he miners have a disaster and' had never worked with as bestos? Nope. Never. But as he talked to Selikoff. Kerr's wife 'i^e^uge^j do their pictures show up on the front pages with dirty faces, and everybody feels sorry. So they put a black lung bill X41483] through Congress. We have a hiaher picenug* of people dying of respiratory trouble, but nobody gives a damn about it." died of cancer of the stom ach, colon and rectum. Over seven per cent died of as bestosis." Nor are these figures pecul iar to the locals in question. - remarks about asbestos that might harm its sales should emanate from the conference, he could expect to see them in court. The U. S. Public Health Service conducted air. `asked the asbestos company's officials to let hire look at their personnel records, they -said they had lost them. But .because the factory's output had been used in war produc- Selikoff goes on to cite more samplings in a couple of jtion, all its employes had had N Jan. I, 1943, ' Locals 12 and 32 of the Asbestos Workers Union in New York and Newark. N. J. had 632 mem bers. Dr. Selikoff and his col leagues have traced the 625 who matter here (seven died extensive studies confirming that similar increased deaths "occur in every single group of asbestos workers that's been examined." And he con cludes: "This is simply an occupational disaster without parallel in American history." dozen asbestos plants in 1964, but it refused to disclose its findings to Selikoff, or, as he puts it, "apparently the key to the file cabinet was lost." Though workers In shipyards today are subjected to much the same asbestos hazards as - early, mostly of acciden Such an alarming finding is fat World War U, Navy medi tal causes). Given their just now beginning to pene cal officers generally refuse 203 of those men trate the thinking of workers, to talk about the problem or would normally have been ex which is rather odd, since as to discuss what they are pected to die by the end of bestos industry officials and doing, if anything, to protect 1962. Instead, 255 had died the U. S. Public Health Serv workers In the yards under --an excess over the normal ice and the U. S. Department their command. death rate of more than 20 of Labor have known for SeUkofTs crowd has run per cent. About seven should years that asbestos could be ,, into this wall since the begin have died from lung cancer, a serious hazard. For more ning. In the'early fifties, hav but 45 died of it Instead of than 60 years cases of asbes ing recently won the Ameri the normal nine or 10 deaths tos disease have been posi can Public Health Associa from cancer of the stomach, tively diagnosed. colon or rectum, there were Deaths due to asbestosis tion's Albert Lasker Award in Medicine for his part in devel 29--"not so unexpected," as were clearly defined at least Selikoff points out, for "any as early as the nineteen- body who inhates dust also twenties. The association be- ingests it. Any worker is al tween lung cancer and oc- ways spitting out the stuff . cupational exposure to asbes you think he's only inhaling." tos was proved in a paper And whereas nobody in the published in 1955 by Sir general population dies of Richard Doll, then chief sta- asbestosis--scarred lungs--12 * tistidan of the British Medi- men In this study group died ' cal Research Council. In 105 of it during the first 20 years, consecutive autopsies at one and 4 died of mesothelioma. asbestos plant in England, he That left 370 of the group found 18 deaths due to lung still alive on Jan. 1, 1963. Be cancer. And in 1965 an equal- tween then and the end of ' ly conclusive connection was 1971, 78 of them should have established between asbestos died if they followed the pat and mesothelioma in a paper tern of the general popula published by Selikoff, Ham tion. Instead, 163 died. "And mond and Dr. Jacob Churg why? The same thing," says in The New England Journal Selikoff. "There should have been four or live lung-cancer of Medicine. Since then, there has been an explosion of - deaths in this group. There literature on the occupational were 43. There should have hazards of asbestos, encour- been no deaths of mesothe ; aged by symposia such as the lioma--that doesn't occur in one held recently in Lyons, the genera] population. There France, . by scientists from were 23. There should have around the world. been three deaths of cancer The asbestos industry and of the stomach or rectum. the U. S. Department of La There were 12. And of course bor have not seemed exactly there should have been no overjoyed to receive all this deaths from scarred lungs. ' new data; indeed, their basic There were 20. ' response has been a combina- oping a drug crucial to the control of tuberculosis. Dr. Selikoff opened a clinic in Paterson. N. J.. to continue his research into pulmonary diseases. Among his first pa tients were 17 men who worked in the Union Asbestos and Rubber Company plant, which started production in Paterson in 1940 and closed in 1954. At that time, ail 17 men were strong and work ing. and appeared likely to go on doing so tor many years. But within seven years, six were dead, and today, only two survive. Seven died of lung cancers, one of meso thelioma, one of stomach cancer, one of colon cancer, four of asbestosis, and one of "other" ailments. Some thing strange was developing, and Selikoff wanted to broaden the investigation to find out what had happened to all the men who worked in that plant from the time it opened. He needed money, and he asked the U. S. Public -Health Service for a grant. It turned him down. When he to be cleared by the F.3X, so !a list of the workers on the `factory's payroll during the war years 1941 to 1945 did exist, and by a process Seli koff prefers not to discuss, he got bis hands on the names of the 933 workers of that era. "That's all we needed," he recalls. "That and a lot of work, because v;e had to trace those 933 men. Surpris ingly. we were able to find 877 by the end of 1971" The effort proved reveal ing. According to Dr. Ham mond's calculations, in a normal population group of that size, considering age and sex factors, 299 would have died by 1971. But in this group, 484 were dead. Nor mally 50 could have been ex pected to have died of some kind of cancer; in this group, 143 died of cancer. The group's lung cancer rate was nearly 700 per cent higher than the general population's; its stomach and colon cancer rates were twice as high. Seven men had died of mesothelioma. In those war years, many of the workers had been em ployed for only brief periods at the plant "Of those who worked far one week or less, when X-rayed 30 years later half of them had some scar ring; nine had nothing and 10 had some scarring. Less than one week, and they had ab normal X-rays!" says Selikoff. who never ceases to be amazed by the statistics he and Hammond use. "So the problem is not only how much you work. Of course, the more you .work, the worse it is. But even those who had very little exposure, if you live long enough you're going to have problems." "If we total up this one . tion of defensiveness and small group of workers from hostility and furtiveness.'In Jan. 1,-1943, to Dec. 31, 1971, 1964, when Selikoff was oralmost 20 per cent died of . ganizing an international a lung cancer. Out of the 430 symposium, he received a letmen who died, one out of ' ter from the law firm repre <b .0 *y*ry five asbestos workers senting asbestos textile com csed of lung cancer. Almost panies, informing him that seven per cent died of meso the industry was aware of thelioma. Almost 10 per cent what he was up to and imply ing that if any derogatory X414832 throw his net more wice.ly, SelV'Off wnt to Johnsj'.'invilie Corporation in Man vilie, N. J. He was not welcotrri. "Somehow," he says, "the company couldn't find itself able to cooperate." Nor could the Federal Govern* ment find funds for the re-' search. But Joe Modrone, president of Local add, United Papermakers and Paperworkers, which has jurisdiction at Manvilie. took Selikoff into the basement of the union's headquarters and scratched around and came up with the seniority list for Jan. 1. 1959. There were about 3,000 names on the list. Of these. 6S9 had worked at the. plant for 20 years. Selikoff's men set out to track them down. "Let's see now what hap pened to them--and mind, this is only the beginning of what will happen to them." says Selikoff. "Given their ages, there should have been 134 deaths among the 639. There were 199. And again, . why did these people die who were not expected to die? Eight should have died of lung cancer; 27 actually did. And 15 died of mesothelioma." Two or three times as many died of cancer of the colon or cancer of the rectum or of the stomach as normally would be expected. Ten per cent died of ashestosis. "it was becoming monotonous--a' hell of a monotony! So not only in the plant at Paterson but now in Manvilie, too, the same pic- ture." But while Selikoff and ' Hammond and their crowd did everything they could to uncover evidence of the dis aster that was occurring in the asbestos industry, indus try and Government remained unmoved. The most impressive case of bureaucracy/industry indiffer ence occurred at the Union' Asbestos and Rubber Com pany factory in Tyler, Tex. This is the same outfit that had operated the factory in Paterson, N. J., before closing it in 1954. Union Asbestos later sold out to Pittsburgh Corning Corp. But under any ' name, the Tyler plant was still a foul place to work. Reputedly, in some areas of the plant the asbestos dust was so thick workers couldn't see across the room. Medical facilities consisted ot two first-aid cabinets, one with a broken glass door admitting asbestos waste was dumped . in nearby fields, sometimes to I a depth of three feet, that )' children sometimes used as a i playground. Bags in which as bestos had been shipped to the plant and which were still coated with asbestos dust were sold to local nursery men who do a tremendous business in roses. It is futile to guess at the number of nurserymen and customers who breathed an injurious amount of asbestos . dust from the sacks, but the factory - workers can be counted. Personnel records microfilmed by the Public Health Service show that be tween 1954 and 1972 at least 895 persons were employed there; They were working un der deadly conditions and the U. S. Department of Labor . and the Public Health Serv ice were aware of these con ditions at least as early as 1967. But they kept quiet. Inspectors from the old Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health (BOSH) took air samples in 1967 that showed that the count of asbestos fibers was in some parts of the plant 60 times higher than today's officially declared safe level of five fibers per cubic centimeter. These findings , were withheld from the work ers. In 1968, because the Tyter plant turned out asbestos in sulation under a Navy con tract, it was subjected to an inspection by the Labor De; partment under the WalshHealey Act. The company could have been heavily fined or even dosed because of its health violations; instead, the Labor Department took no ac tion at all. That's the way things stood until 1970, when Congress passed the Occupational Safe ly and Health Act. With that act. BOSH was phased out - and replaced by NIOSH--the National Institute of Safety and Health. With the change of initials came a change of bureaucrats and attitude, too. Among them were Dr. Joseph K. Wagoner, who became director of the Divi sion of Field Studies and Clinical Investigations,' and Dr. William M. Johnson, a re- ` cent product of the Harvard School of Public Health, who became Wagoner's assistant. They inherited a medical chaos, s burial ground of old statistical bones hastily cov. . ered up by their predecessors. " "We even inherited about - 2,000 air samples that hadn't been counted." Johnson re calls, "because the previous . inspectors bad been out col. lecting data without ever coming to grips with what they were doing. They would just keep rescheduling sur' veys, sometimes a second or. third time around at a plant without really giving any thought to what it was really showing from a health stand point" .Buried deep in the files he found Tyler, Tex. Why had , Public Health Service and La bor Department officials t covered it up? "I could say they were stupid, or that it was criminal negligence, or ! bureaucracy, or 1 could say : they were afraid that if they did start getting concerned about this that their right of entry would have been cut off." says. Johnson, "but the fact is, I don't know." All he did know immediately from the records he uncovered was that "the plant had no busi ness operating." But still the higher bureauc racy balked. "We transmitted 'our sampling results to the ; Labor Department," says Johnson, "and also followed up with a comprehensive re port." The report showed that of a sampling of 17 men . who had worked in the plant 10 years, eight had asbestosis. : "The Department of Labor i0S!,, X414833 would not'honor our samples. They, wanted to take their own for compliance. They went in--I don't remember the exact date; I believe it was November. 1971--and they took some samples and came * up with citations. But they didn't mention asbestos in the citations and the citations only added up to $210 in non* serious violations." Dr. Johnson, despite the fact that he has only a re stricted view of the industry, says he knows of "about a half-dozen plants'* in which the asbestos levels are four to eight times what the Labor Department concedes is the maximum safe level. But ac tually, nobody knows how widespread the hazard is. Fed eral funding for inspections is At issue was whether to set the standards at a maximum permissible air concent of two asbestos libera (each longer than 5 microns) per cubic centimeter or five asbestos fibers. In either case, that's quite a bit of dust. A cubic centimeter is about the size of a small thimble of air, and a workman will inhale about six to eight million of them So much public ridicule and at a rock bottom minimum. in a typical day. So the issue - bad publicity greeted that And unions may be as leth was whether to require the punishment that Labor felt argic as industry or Govern companies to maintain condi obliged to reinspect the fac ment when it comes to in tions which would prevent a tory and levy a $6,990 fine. forming workers of the risk. worker from having to inhale Two weeks later, claiming the Officials of the United Ce more than 12 million to 16 fines were too great a burden ment. Lime and Gypsum million fibers of a certain to bear. Pittsburgh Comine workers, which has jurisdic-. length, or 30 eillion to 40 mil decided to dose the plant. tion at a plant where asbestos lion fibers. With a substance Left behind were many Tyler dust concentration is said to that the Labor Department residents who will eventually be over 100 times the-safe' concedes "is causally related die of asbestos disease. Are there other asbestos outfits still humming away in the same condition that filled 'the lungs of Tyler? Some are trying to shape up. At the level, say they haven't even bothered to get their workers X-rayed yet. though a U. S. Bureau of Mines report ex posed the danger last March. to asbestnsis and cancers," the multimillion differences were obviously no trivial nutter. With what appeared to be an effort to get the best an Johns-ManviUe plant in New As for the enforcement of swer, Labor Secretary James Jersey, for example, company offldals daim--and union of health standards established Hodgson early in 1972 ap under the Occupational Safety - pointed an outside Advisory ficials agree--that in 90 per ` and Health Act. Federal offi cent of the factory the asbes cials have conceded in testi Committee on Asbestos Dust made up of scientists and en tos fiber count is already be mony before Congress that if ' gineers and labor officials. He ' low the five-fibers per c.c. max they were going to enforce also had the assistance of an imum sec by Federal health health standards properly, standards. The dust is sucked they would need about one up through hoods over the : hygienist per 32,000 workers. inside advisory group of med ical men and scientists put together especially for this machines and captured in a ' So far as can be determined, problem by NIOSH. central bag house. And at J.- the Labor Department at pres Also from the outside he M.'s asbestos mill in Asbestos, : ent has 60 hygienists -- or Que, the bagging of the about 1 per 1.2 million work mineral is done entirely by ers--to enforce all health hired Arthur D. Little, Inc., a consulting firm, to come uo with some advice on the machines; everything is en standards, not just those relat economic feasibility of re closed; human hands don't ing to asbestos hazards. quiring industry to get rid of touch it, and the dust is re Since there seems to be no its asbestos dust. Arthur D. portedly carried away in 70.- . great rush to enforce any as Little's panel of experts was 000 separate suction opera bestos 'health standards, it made up of 13 executives tions. Johns-ManviUe Is also "considering" hiring only nonsmokers in some of its opera tions. 'This corporation has a conscience 80 miles long.'' says J.-M.'s Vice President Solon. "We've sent out In structions to dean up or dose down, but I won't tell you nanny matters wneuter the standards are the proper ones. But the manner in which they were decided may give some further indication of what the ` laboring man can expect in the way of protection from the Federal agencies and the industry. from the shipbuilding indus try, 12 executives from the asbestos industry, and a health group of 11 doctors and technicians, all but two or three of whom reputedly have been ``consultants'* to the asbestos industry at some the whole industry takes that time In their careers. attitude." / The Advisory Committee on Asbestos Dust told Hodgson he should drop the standard to two fibers. NIOSH's panel agreed that two fibers was : none too low. But Arthur D. &08029 Little concluded that five fibers was perfectly safe and that dropoing the standard to tiro fibers would cost indus try far too much money. In_ addition, four days of be ings were held at the Lab Department ou'ices in War ington.'with industry contei mg that Selikoff is right up a point, but tnac ne goes t far and interprets his fir. ings too wildly. Matt Sw tonic. Secretary of the Asbe las Information Service, New York health data disc button center funded by t. industry, says, "There h been considerable controver with Selikoff not so much < the. effects of asbestos, b on the best means to contr it and what sort of levels a necessary to control vario asbestos diseases." Indust people, says Swetonic, t lieve that the perils of the i sulation- workers--who fa periodic massive doses of a bestos-ladsn air--are u often confused with what i dustry contends are the ma ageable low-level exposures the asbestos manuracrunr factories. In the end, Hodgson, insL. ing that he had arrived at k decision by an independe appraisal of ail evidence, buffed his own advise: group and said that a fiv fiber standard would be . effect fnr the next four year (Coincidentally. Johns-Maville Corporation the sar day notified Us stockholde that the ruling would r hurt their sales and earning Selikoff points out that th ruling was designed to set safety level for zsbestosis, m for cancer, and that in ar case, qualified scientists sic ply cannot be sure enouj about the nature of asbestc related disease to say whe the level should be fixed. 1 this light, he arrues, Hod son's ruling was at best i cautious. "There's a lot < published evidence that in ri fibers per c.c. mesothelioma c curs, lung cancer occurs, a bestosis occurs. An industr. hygiene practice in our cou try has been that when the is a serious risk, you build ir big safety factor. But wh A'4 14834 done is say, 'We don't know for sure what level will cer tainly cause cancer and with; out this knowledge there is no requirement for extra cau tion,* instead of saying. These are the lives of hundreds of thousands of American workers that we are respon sible for and therefore let's set the most prudent level.'" ' By continuing the five-fiber standard for another four years--a period that will probably see 100,000 or so new men enter asbestos-re lated industries--Selikoff pre dicts the Labor Department has doomed 20,000 to un necessary lung-cancer deaths; 7.0C0 to unnecessary meso thelioma deaths, 7,000 to un necessary asbestosis deaths as well as deaths of other can cers. And that's not counting combination effects--asbestos plus' tobacco' smoke, asbestos plus the coal-tar pitch work ers like roofers must handle. AH in all, Selikoff predicts that "by a stroke of the pen, 50,000 more lives were thrown down the drain," The A.F.L.-C.LO., agreeing with Selikoff, has sued the Department of Labor in the U. S. Court of Appeals, charg ing that Secretary Hodgson Meanwhile, Selikoffs flying wedge continues relentlessly down the field. Not tong ago. Selikoff was having some drywall construction work done did not consider the evidence in his of/ice. He sat there or act to protect workers as . watching the workmen and the law requires him to do, and demanding that he re view the evidence again and set tougher standards. From the opposite direction, how ever, comes pressure to ease up further. The National In sulation Contractors Associa all of a sudden it occurred to him: T said to myself, well, hell, if these guys have been putting up that stuff--watch them spackle it and sand it down so you can't see the joint--they're not immune. I tion has petitioned the Labor had enough background Department to give its mem knowledge to know that the ber companies--who repre taping compound has asbestos sent a large segment of the in it. So 1 got in touch with industry that hires asbestos the painter's union, and their workers--a year's deferment from ihonitoring require tapers came up to see me. To ments. The N.LC-A. promises make a long story short, that that if the asbestos workers week one of-their men was will cross their fingers and operated on for lung cancer. hold their breath until the end So we cut the lung; the elec of 1973, virtually all of the tron microscope showed it insulating companies by then was loaded with asbestos. will have switched to asbes This Is a new trade, began in tos-free materials such as 1946 or so, right after the fiber glass. war--everything became dry- wall--most of the guys in it for only 10, 15, 20 years. We just began a survey at the union's - request We've X-rayed our first 17 men, and nine of the 17 have asbestosis. These are the old-timers, with 25. years in the trade. Very mild, because these are early cases so far. But we know what's in their lungs." And so another group- fails under - Selikoffs cloud. But of course, as in any scientific confrontation, there is always the possibility of miscalculation. Perhaps Selikoff and Hammond and their coUeagues at Mt Sinai Hospi tal and in the American Can cer Society shouldn't frighten shipyard workers and painters and pipefitters and insulation workers and the rest. Perhaps Assistant Labor Secretary George C. Guenther--who once defended the small fines levied against corporate health violators by saying that "we are not in the fund raising business"--was cor rect to upbraid Selikoff for having chosen, as Guenther judged it, "to overdramatize the matter." It is not, how ever, an argument that evades resolution. Those who have worked around asbestos for any length of time will, soon er or later, find out who was right X4I4835 40803C ' the Labor Department has done is say, 'We don't know for sure what level will cer tainly cause cancer and with: out this knowledge there is no requirement for extra cau tion,* instead of saying. These are the lives of hundreds of thousands of American workers that we are respon sible for aind therefore let's set the most prudent level.'" ' By continuing the five-fiber standard for another four years--a period that will probably see 100,000 or so new men enter asbestos-re lated industries--Selikoff pre dicts the Labor Department has (loomed 20,000 to un necessary lung-cancer deaths, 7.0C0 to unnecessary meso thelioma deaths, 7,000 to un necessary asbestosis deaths as well as deaths of other can cers. And that's not counting combination effects--asbestos plus' tobacco' smoke, asbestos plus the coal-tar pitch work ers like roofers must handle. All in all. Selikoff predicts that ''by a stroke of the pen, 50,000 more lives were thrown down the drain." The A.F.L.-C.I.O., agreeing- Meanwhile, SelikofTs flying with Selikoff, has sued the wedge continues relentlessly Department of Labor in the down the field. Not long ago, U. S. Court of Appeals, charg Selikoff was having some dry- ing that Secretary Hodgson wall construction work done did not consider the evidence in his office. He sat there or act to protect workers as watching the workmen and the law requires him to do, all of a sudden it occurred to and demanding that he re view the evidence again and set tougher standards. From the opposite direction, how ever, comes pressure to ease up further. The National In him: "I said to myself, well, hell, if these guys have been putting up that stuff--watch them spackle it and sand it down so you can't see the sulation Contractors Associa Joint--they're not immune. I tion has petitioned the Labor had enough background Department to give its mem knowledge to know that the ber companies--who repre taping compound has asbestos sent a large segment of the in II So 1 got in touch with industry that hires asbestos the painter's union, and their workers--a year's deferment from monitoring require tapers came up to see me. To ments. The N.I.C.A. promises make a long story short, that that if the asbestos workers week one of-their men was wilt cross their fingers and operated on for lung cancer. hold their breath until the end So we cut the lung; the elec of 1973, virtually all of the tron microscope showed it insulating companies by then was loaded with asbestos. will have switched to asbes This is a new trade, began in tos-free materials such as 1948 or so, right after the fiber glass. wap--everything became dry- wall--most of the guys in it for only 10, 15, 20 years; We Just began a survey at the union's request We've X-rayed our first 17 men, and nine of the 17 have asbestosis. ' These are the old-timers, with 25. years in the trade. Very mild, because these are early cases so far. But we know what's in their lungs." And so another group falls under - Selikoffs cloud. But of course, as in any scientific confrontation, there is always the possibility of miscalculation. Perhaps Selikoff and Hammond and their colleagues at Mt Sinai Hospi tal and in the American Can cer Society shouldn't frighten shipyard workers and painters and pipefitters and insulation workers and the rest. Perhaps Assistant Labor Secretary George C Guenther--who once defended the small fines levied against corporate health violators by saying that "we are not in the fund raising business"--was cor rect to upbraid Selikoff for having chosen, as Guenther judged it, "to overdramatize the matter." It is not, how ever, an argument that evades resolution. Those who have worked around asbestos for any length of time will, soon er or later, find out who was right X414835 A0803C ' The shin oi the salamander \_ Asbestos, & name that embraces num ber of fibrous mineral silicates, has been used by man for thousands of years, and for most of that time Us qualities have produced confusion and mystery and myth. 16 the aggregate it is a rock with alt of a typical rock's rigidity, but broken up it yields fibers that can be spun and woven as easily as flax or cotton. For centuries It was commonly assumed that asbestos was a vegetable rather than a mineral. There was something obviously strange and wonderful about fibers that seemed so gossamer and yet were as strong as steel wire: an ancient explanation of asbes tos* most mysterious power was that the material came from the skin of the sala mander, a mythical animat that could endure fire without harm--a notion that i was useful to poets even as late as last century (Southey: "Fly, Salamanders, on Asbestos* wings. To Wanton in my Celia's fiery glance"). Asbestos remained primarily a curiosity until the lQ70's when--because of its flexibility, its tensile strength, its invulnerabilty to heat and srids and alkalies-- i it was first commercially mined. In the I intervening years it has become a prized 1 ingredient in thousands of industrial products: floor tiles, filters in the manu facture of beer and other foodstuffs, electrical tape, paddings of all sorts, paper binding, paints, etc. Nearly four million tons are mined annually throughout the world; the United States, though it contributes little to the total production. Is the world's largest consumer of the mineral. The Bureau of Mines says we used 75S.571 tons in 1971. U.S. use of asbestos has grown 1.000-fold in this century, compared to an SO-fold growth for petroleum. Ninety-five per cent of this is chrysotile asbestos from the open-pit mines of Quebec, Canada, probably still the world's most produc tive source, although Russia is beginning to challenge Canada's production lead. Amosite asbestos, most important for shipyard work, comes largely from South African mines. Rudolph Wild, the brilliant engineer whose work a generation ago persuaded the U.S. Navy that amosite asbestos was superior for shipyard insu lation and should be written into Navy contract specifications, paid for his in volvement with the magic mineral. Hs died of mesothelioma.--R. S. 'b \ .0 X414836